Sea Birds ........... And Help?

[Guest]

We recently spent a couple of days at the beach on a fishing trip. The wind blew a gale the entire time, and we caught absolutely nothing, but did enjoy watching the birds.

White-faced Heron


Immature Pacific Gull - looking nothing like the beautiful white adult birds.


Silver Gull Portrait.


And if anyone could help me with how I can lift his beak colour without lightening the rest of him, I would really, really appreciate it!

[Barr1e]

Re: Sea Birds ........... And Help?

I am just about to go out and have not checked what colour the beak should be - however, a quick play in Elements 10 on the beak.



Regards. Barr1e

[jdal]

Re: Sea Birds ........... And Help?

Nice shots, particularly that portrait.

What software do you have? Photoshop's "Shadow/Highights" does the trick.

If you have the Raw file , that'd be better.

[Roy Clarke]

Re: Sea Birds ........... And Help?

Probably over the top but a simple solution with the shadow slider to max on LR4 (free Trial Available) and layered with original in Photoshop.

Hope this may be of use

Regards
Roy

[Floribunda]

Re: Sea Birds ........... And Help?

Nice shots, particularly that portrait.

What software do you have? Photoshop's "Shadow/Highights" does the trick.

If you have the Raw file , that'd be better.

Hi John - I am stupid, sorry - should have said I have Photoshop and Olympus Master.
I did do Shadow/highlights but wanted to isolate that beak. Don't do raw.

[Floribunda]

Re: Sea Birds ........... And Help?

Thanks Barrie and Roy.

Roy - that is what I was after. I haven't come to terms with layers or some of the finer points of Photoshop yet.
Thank you for the help.

[David Morison]

Re: Sea Birds ........... And Help?

Very nice images and superb detail - interesting to see the different pp techniques to enhance the bill colour.

David

[jdal]

Re: Sea Birds ........... And Help?

Hi John - I am stupid, sorry - should have said I have Photoshop and Olympus Master.
I did do Shadow/highlights but wanted to isolate that beak. Don't do raw.

As others have said, the full monty technique would use layers, but since you haven't used raw you can't develop one copy exposed for the beak and one for the rest of the bird, and blend them together with the layers.

Quite honestly, for this particular shot, I'd just select the beak roughly with the lassoo tool to stop adjustments affecting other shadows in the bird, and use the Shadows/Highlights adjustment dialog. It has more flexibility than the LR shadow recovery tool (although I seem to recall that LR4 has enhanced this tool).

I suppose my top tip would be to shoot RAW and JPG, then you have much more scope for shadow recovery.

[Floribunda]

Re: Sea Birds ........... And Help?

As others have said, the full monty technique would use layers, but since you haven't used raw you can't develop one copy exposed for the beak and one for the rest of the bird, and blend them together with the layers.

Quite honestly, for this particular shot, I'd just select the beak roughly with the lassoo tool to stop adjustments affecting other shadows in the bird, and use the Shadows/Highlights adjustment dialog. It has more flexibility than the LR shadow recovery tool (although I seem to recall that LR4 has enhanced this tool).

I suppose my top tip would be to shoot RAW and JPG, then you have much more scope for shadow recovery.

Thanks again John, I haven't used the lasso tool, so will practice that.
And it is beginning to look as though I should explore RAW as well.
I need more hours in the day!

[Floribunda]

Re: Sea Birds ........... And Help?

Just a quick ps to this thread.
I had a lovely play with the Lasso and Shadows/Highlights and got the effect I was after with the beak. It wasn't as difficult as I thought and came up a treat.
I have also had Scott Kelby's books recommended to me, so now is the time to get serious with this pp!
Thank you all again for the guidance.

[OlyPaul]

Re: Sea Birds ........... And Help?

Lyn you may wish to try this way.

1-Duplicate the layer then use the Highlight shadow tool to get the beak correct ignoring the effect on the rest of the image.

2- Add a layer mask then fill it with black ( Edit >fill > choose black. this takes your image back to it's original state.

3- Now using the paint brush tool and white, paint the beak back to it's edited state.

The beauty of this method is if you make a mistake you just change the paint color to black to reverse your mistake.

Also did the ring around they eye at the same time.

[Guest]

Re: Sea Birds ........... And Help?

My head hurts - I thought it was a good pic anyway - but I have not really come to gripes with PS.

[Floribunda]

Re: Sea Birds ........... And Help?

My head hurts - I thought it was a good pic anyway - but I have not really come to gripes with PS.

LOL Terry - I can remember saying to Mark how I would never get into pp as taking an acceptable photo was all I would ever want to do, but it was like an itch that I had to scratch, and I have to tell you that it is fascinating. And probably can lead to addiction!

[Phill D]

Re: Sea Birds ........... And Help?

I thought it was a good shot at first too but these examples just show what small tweaks can do. Maybe another thread to go in the techniques area? Also I just noticed that Scott Kelby is coming to London see link below.

http://kelbytraining.com/event/islington-london-uk/

Not a bad price for a day's tuition but a bit expensive if it's just a lecture in a large auditorium.